USA Africa Dialogue Series - Successive/Cyclic Rise and Fall of Africa, Euro-America & Asia

Two recent articles have attempted to look again at this old question on power succession and domination in the global arena. The first one is using the Tordesillas moment to argue that the current superpower, i.e. the US,  is being overtaken by China and India just like the way it overtook Russia/USSR and other European countries. Then the other one picks a baton from Jared Diamond to assert that geographical shifts explains why the West, that is, the North or Euro-America, is ruling the world but only for now. This debate is relevant to Africans in the current context when, after 50 years or so of  Africa's independence, we are still wondering when shall we rise again - or to use Psalm's language, when shall we soon stretch out our hands? One leading African(ist) scholar has recently posed the following question which can help us look at the Long Duree and figure out our rise/fall: "Or was the Eurocolonial century just a short chapter in millennia of African history?" If indeed Euro-American capitalism - and its triplets: slavery, colonialism and imperialism - is only a short bracket in the history of human civilization, as Samir Amin asserted early this year, then surely in the long run there must be another historical cycle such as the one that saw the rise of great African civilizations. We have been told by champions of African Renaissance that Africa's time has come - the current century/millenium. What are the (cyclic) odds of this eventuality in relation to the current global configuration that seems to be shifting back to China and India again as it was way back in the heyday of Dhow Cultures of the Indian Ocean?

 

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My mission is to acquire, produce and disseminate knowledge on and about humanity as well as divinity, especially as it relates to Africa, in a constructive and liberating manner to people wherever they may be.
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Address: P. O. Box 4460 Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania

Cell : + 255 754771763/+ 255 718953273

Blog: http://udadisi.blogspot.com/
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